Archaeological Night-Vision: Experiments in Aerial Thermography

Summary

For several decades it has been known that aerial thermography can be used as a geophysical prospecting method. The accidental discovery of an ancient Sinagua agricultural field complex in 1966 prompted a series of experiments throughout the 1970s and 1980s, which confirmed the effectiveness of aerial thermography in archaeological applications. Even so, thermal imaging was rarely utilized in archaeological field research due to the extreme costs and high level of technical expertise demanded by the method. Today, the status quo is changing as the introduction of modern high-quality, compact thermal cameras coincides with the proliferation of affordable, user-friendly unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Aerial thermography is now within the reach of most field researchers and can be easily employed to collect an alternative or complementary data set to other geophysical prospecting methods. However, many questions still remain regarding the ideal timing and conditions for thermal data collection. This poster will present the methods and results of a Master’s thesis experiment designed to explore the impact of several environmental factors on the efficacy of this exciting new survey technique.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords